The 'MSC Allegra' (23,782 TEU) arrived on Wednesday night on a maiden voyage in Antwerp and will shatter all throughput records there. The container giant is the first megamax in Northern Europe to call on only Flemish ports.
The 'MSC Allegra' is sailing in the AE6/Lion Service of Maersk and MSC's 2M Vessel Sharing Agreement between the Far East and Europe. In Northern Europe, this service normally calls at Antwerp, Felixstowe and Le Havre, but due to port congestion, the stop in Le Havre is currently being skipped and taken over by 2M's AE55/Griffin Service, which then passes Antwerp.
For the maiden voyage of the 'MSC Allegra', which with a capacity of 23,782 TEU along with four other ships - including the 'MSC Michelle' - is currently the largest megamax in the MSC fleet, the European rotation has been adjusted. After a first stop in the Portuguese port of Sines, the brand new ship went to Zeebrugge to unload cargo for Felixstowe from 11 to 14 December during an inducement call.
Till Tuesday
On Wednesday, December 14, the mooring lines at CSP Zeebrugge Terminal were released just after six o'clock in the evening to set course for Antwerp. There, the 'MSC Allegra' is expected to be on the sidelines until the night of next Wednesday (22 December) to Thursday (23 December), as an impressive number of containers have to be handled.
MSC PSA European Terminal (MPET) already expects that call-up will be good for a call size of approximately 23,500 teu, meaning that the recent throughput record of the 'Manila Maersk' will soon be relegated to the history books. From Antwerp, the 'MSC Allegra' will immediately return to Singapore, with only a stopover in the Moroccan port of Tanger Med.
Not only ‘Allegra’
It is already clear that the AE6/Lion Service will have a strong presence in Antwerp in the coming weeks. The rotation of the 'MSC Rapallo' (13,050 TEU) from the same service has already been adjusted. That ship has already called in Malaga in the Mediterranean Sea and is currently on its way to Zeebrugge for an extra call.
Then the ship comes to Antwerp and from there it goes directly to Tanger Med. This means that this ship will only call at Zeebrugge and Antwerp in Northern Europe. If the two Flemish ports had already merged, those ships would actually have had only one Northern European call: in the 'Port of Antwerp-Bruges'.
Docking area
Due to the larger call sizes, the ships from the AE6/Lion service now remain with MPET for a relatively long time. This means that the permanent berth in zone 5 is almost permanently taken over by this service. After the departure of the 'MSC Allegra', which will be lying on the sidelines for no less than eight days, the 'MSC London' (16,652 teu) and the already mentioned 'MSC Rapallo' will also arrive before the end of the year. will take about half a week.
Verberckmoes, S. (2021b, Dec 16). ‘MSC Allegra’ writes Flemish port history (update). flow. Retrieved on 23 December 2021, from https://www.flows.be/nl/shipping/recordschip-msc-allegra-schrijven-vlaamse-havenhistorie